TL;DR
- Here’s a rundown of the latest developments in cloud workflows to emerge from the 2024 NAB Show, including a ground-up redesign from Frame.io, 48TB hardware to store 12K dailies from Blackmagic Design, and a way to move media from Amove’s desktop drive into the Storj cloud platform.
- Cloud storage specialist Backblaze is opening up its technology as a white label to third-party vendors and other companies.
- Wasabi Technologies is adding AI-powered auto-tagging and multilingual speech-to-text transcription to its cloud storage.
Camera-to-cloud workflows accelerate the creative process. By shrinking the capture-to-edit timeframe, editors can begin working on media instantly instead of waiting for hard drives or delayed file transfers.
Proxy generation of original camera files to H.264 and ProRes is one of the most used features of Studio Network Solutions’ EVO Suite, and with the latest updates this process is now faster using and also now supports the latest RED and ARRI cameras.
Storage and media management specialist EditShare has teamed with Atomos to bring camera to cloud workflows from the latter’s camera mounted monitor-recorders into its collaboration platform MediaSilo via the cloud. After pairing your Atomos device via HDMI or SDI to the Atomos Cloud and adding MediaSilo as your destination, users can upload proxy files as they record.
It’s the latest such integration with Atomos products. “We’ve always considered ourselves to be a neutral ‘gateway’ to a wide selection of secure destinations for our customers’ content,” said Atomos CEO Jeromy Young.
READ MORE: MediaSilo to Offer Camera to Cloud with Atomos (EditShare)
The grandfather of camera-to-cloud is Frame.io, which was first released in 2015 and is now being revamped by its new owners, Adobe. The fourth version of the asset management software is “more than just an update; it signifies a complete transformation of the product, marking the beginning of a new chapter in how modern teams structure and manage their creative workflows,” says Frame.io co-founder and VP Emery Wells.
Metadata is apparently key to the new Frame.io v4 experience. “Instead of relying solely on a rigid folder structure, you can now organize and view your media based on how you and your team work in a single, unified platform,” explains Wells.
Frame.io has introduced a flexible, saved view of assets called Collections that allow users to select, filter, group, and sort media using metadata. “Collections update in real time, reducing the time your team spends manually culling and organizing,” the company says. “They also allow you to organize (or reorganize) your files in unique combinations without needing to make duplicates of your assets, which conserves storage space. Collections is our answer to providing the kinds of flexible workflows that you’ve long asked for, without us dictating the approach, process, or template for how you work.”
READ MORE: Frame.io Version 4 Beta is Here (Frame.io)
Blackmagic Design has expanded its camera-to-cloud workflow by enabling its latest cameras, the Pyxis and Ursa Cine 12K, to transfer proxy (compressed) media direct to the cloud. Its overall distributed collaboration concept for post-production relies on a piece of on-premise hardware. Announced in 2022, the Blackmagic Cloud Store now has a new Max model with capacity for either 24TB or 48TB, the former costing $6,495. This increased capacity of network storage is designed to work with the sizeable files of the 12K Ursa.
One upside is media sync with DaVinci Resolve, meaning that the moment a film crew starts shooting, the camera media will sync within seconds so the post production team can start working.
According to CEO Grant Petty, Blackmagic Cloud Store is designed to handle the large media files used in film and television where multiple editors, colorists, audio engineers and VFX artists all work on the media at the same time. “It even handles massive 12K Blackmagic RAW digital film files,” he says. “Each user gets zero latency and they don’t need to store files on their local computer. That’s perfect for DaVinci Resolve.”
Users can install a local cache of media uploaded either to the Blackmagic Cloud website or services like Dropbox and Google Drive. BMD says this makes working faster because files are distributed globally to as many sites as customers need.
READ MORE: Blackmagic Design Announces New Blackmagic Cloud Store Max (BMD)
Cloud MAM and Cloud Storage
Media organizations are operating under tighter deadlines and narrower profit margins and are looking for ways to speed production workflows while controlling costs. This means tools for migrating to cloud that can manage costs between tiers of “hot” and “cold” storage, as well as between cloud and on-premise stores, are highly in demand.
EVO Suite from Studio Networks Solutions is a media asset management tool for remote collaborative working. The latest updates enable users to sync, replicate, and back up media from EVO to destinations that include NAS servers on-prem in a facility, FTP and SFTP sites, and a number of cloud storage platforms, including Box.com, Wasabi, Backblaze, Google, AWS and Azure.
A new bandwidth throttling function can control how much of EVO’s processing power is dedicated to automation (transcodes for example) and how much resource to make available to editors working concurrently on projects. A ShareBrowser integrates EVO Suite media management directly into Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve.
“So, when a producer wants to call out a sub-clip for the highlight reel, or leave a comment at a specific timecode marker, those details appear directly in the editor’s timeline in Resolve and Premiere,” the company says.
READ MORE: New EVO Suite Features Announced At NAB Show 2024 (Studio Network Solutions)
Sony has a bewildering array of cloud related services for live streams, production and post. The company describes Networked Live as an ecosystem to “enable production resources to be optimally connected, used, and shared” to facilitate remote production through on-premise and cloud solutions. It also markets a cloud gateway service called C3 Portal which can onboard live feeds from cellular bonding links via Teradek, LiveU, and TVU Networks and in combination with Dejero and Haivision.
Sony further offers Creators’ Cloud, which comprises a number of cloud-based platforms and apps including a new Multi-Cam monitoring function, as well as media management service Ci Media Cloud. A new integration with Marquis’s Medway provides automated ingest from Ci into Avid systems. Ci also has a new workflow to support automated VFX pulls.
Cloud object storage platform Storj and storage and file management developer Amove have joined forces to offer media customers a route from on-premise into hybrid and full cloud environments.
Amove provides a desktop drive that offers instant access to any cloud storage provider (AWS, Azure, Wasabi and 30 other providers are mentioned) into Storj. The Amove Drive allows users to mount their storage buckets directly from the desktop, “providing a true multi-cloud management tool that delivers immediate access to the largest files from any cloud or on-premise storage,” according to the companies.
Features include syncs between providers, file sharing, cloud to cloud migrations, backups, and AI powered deduplication. Patrick Kennedy, Amove CEO stated, “After years of development and testing over 45 services, we chose Storj as the ideal partner to deliver our users instant capacity from Amove Drives with incredible speed, cost efficiency and performance within an innovative architecture that supports remote streaming and access from anywhere.”
READ MORE: Amove and Storj Simplify Instant Global File Access and Remote Collaboration (Amove/Storj)
Cloud storage specialist Backblaze is opening up its technology as a white label to third-party vendors and other companies.
As CEO Gleb Budman explained, “Backblaze offers companies the ability to deliver the value of our cloud to their customers without the complexity of building their own high performance infrastructure. We are happy to take care of that part so that businesses can easily expand their platforms with affordable, reliable data storage.”
READ MORE: Backblaze Launches Powered by Backblaze to Enable Platform Providers to Offer Cloud Storage (Backblaze)
There are two ways customers can do this. Custom Domains lets businesses serve content to end-users from the web domain or URL of their choosing, “with no need for complex code,” and with Backblaze managing the heavy lifting of cloud storage on the back end.
Software developer Azion has chosen to go this route, with CEO Rafael Umann saying, “We can implement the security needed to serve data from Backblaze to end users from Azion’s Edge Platform, improving user experience.”
Organizations can also use an API to provision cloud storage accounts from Backblaze from within their own platform.
“Our customers produce thousands of hours of content daily and they need a place to store both their original and transcoded files,” says Murad Mordukhay, CEO at cloud video solutions provider Qencode. “The Backblaze API allows us to expand our cloud services and eliminate complexity for our customers — giving them time to focus on their business needs, while we focus on innovations that drive more value.”
Backblaze published an in-depth explanation of the features on its blog.
READ MORE: Object Storage Simplified: Introducing Powered by Backblaze (Backblaze)
Wasabi AiR applies AI-driven metadata, auto-tagging and multilingual speech-to-text transcription to cloud media storage. This is the result of the company’s acquisition in January of Curio AI. Video files uploaded to Wasabi AiR are immediately analyzed and compiled into a searchable metadata index.
“Why move to the cloud if you still can’t find anything?” said Wasabi co-founder and CEO David Friend. “Object storage without metadata is like a library without a catalog. Wasabi AiR works right out of the box and it’s as simple to use as popular search engines. For example, if it finds a face that it doesn’t recognize, it asks ‘Who is this?’ Using a simple UI, the user can train their own models. You can have tens of thousands of hours of video, and Wasabi AiR will take you right to the moment you are looking for.”
Wasabi claims this product “greatly reduces” the cost of metadata creation since customers pay only for the storage with no additional charge for use of the AI.
Dave McCarthy, research VP at analyst IDC, said, “Wasabi AiR represents a significant advancement in tackling the longstanding issue of managing extensive data archives, within a substantial market for intelligent media storage solutions.”
READ MORE: Wasabi Technologies Introduces Wasabi AiR, Pioneering Intelligent Media Storage for Sports, Media and Entertainment Industries (Wasabi)
Akamai is now using NVIDIA GPUs to beef the encoding capabilities of its cloud-based service. The new GPUs are said to be 25x faster than traditional CPU-based encoding and transcoding methods, “which presents a significant advancement in the way streaming service providers address their typical workload challenges.” Use cases outlined by Akamai include transcoding live video streams, rendering 3D graphics for VR and AR content, and for training and inferencing generative AI.
READ MORE: Akamai Rolls Out Cloud Infrastructure and Services Powered by NVIDIA, Optimized for Video Processing (Akamai)
If you broadcast, stream, or distribute live video in the cloud, chances are you’ve spent time building, testing, and securing your workflows. AWS has a new workflow monitor making it easier to do this while running AWS cloud services.
It displays the relationships between resources in a graphical signal map, so you can see which resources are in use and how they are connected.
AWS product marketing manager Dan Gehred says, “Once signal maps are created, you use the workflow monitor to create and apply alarm and notification templates to alert you when issues arise.”
READ MORE: Discover, visualize, and monitor your live video workflows on AWS (AWS)
OpenDrives unveiled its Atlas platform at the 2024 NAB Show, a new software-defined storage solution that integrates seamlessly with a broad range of third-party hardware. This versatility enables users to customize the system according to their unique creative workflows, facilitating efficient and high-speed collaboration. Designed for content creators, broadcasters, sports organizations, and technologists, Atlas adapts to specific data management needs, moving away from traditional fixed hardware/software configurations.
Designed to work seamlessly with various applications, data, and users, Atlas offers a highly performant, cost-efficient platform pre-tuned for content creation, automating internal data management and allowing users to focus more on creative output.
The platform includes an integrated remote editorial and post-production workflow, using a private in-place cloud model to power the DaVinci Resolve editing suite for users in multiple locations, without performance degradation. It also helps accelerate Adobe Premiere workflows, adapting dynamically to data workloads and optimizing performance. This allows editorial teams to work concurrently on the same master project, at scale, without interruption, locking and sharing projects at will.
Backed by OpenDrives’ commitment to continuous innovation, Atlas incorporates advanced technologies such as containerization, REST APIs, and automation. Its design not only maximizes the efficiency of third-party hardware but also ensures a sustainable ROI by continually adding new features and functionality without extra costs.
READ MORE: OpenDrives Reinvents Media Industry Infrastructure Investment Strategy with New Storage Workflow Business Model at NAB 2024 (OpenDrives)
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